After parting ways with the clumsy priests and soldiers, the three of us ventured into the dungeon alone.
When we cleared the twentieth floor, we found that touching the teleportation door and concentrating allowed us to teleport to any previously cleared floor.
The convenience of being able to stop the dungeon challenge and instantly return made it very practical.
“I’ve been considering how much stamina we’d need for the return trip, but now that we can teleport, we can stay in longer,” Akimi suggested.
Haruto and I both agreed.
Our levels had been steadily increasing, and we had acquired new skills. We wanted to continue progressing with this momentum.
Since we could buy supplies from Brother Tohma , we could keep exploring as long as we wanted, using up all our funds if necessary.
“I’ve turned the money from selling dropped items into ten times its value, so it looks like we can live in the dungeon for over a month,” Natsuki said.
“Man, how much did you sell off…?” Akimi asked, sounding impressed.
“Heh. You know, female attendants at the royal castle make pretty good money, don’t they?” Natsuki replied with a smirk.
“Well, most of them are children of lower nobility, so they’d probably have decent funds,” Haruto said thoughtfully.
“Really?” Natsuki said, sounding surprised.
“To host guests properly, you need some level of refinement and education,” Haruto explained.
That explained the generous payments we were getting.
The cheap cosmetics I bought at the 100-yen and 300-yen stores were sold mainly to the female attendants and maids. I had made a good call offering convenience store cosmetics only to the royal women—they immediately noticed the higher quality compared to the cheaper ones I gave them earlier.
In addition to basic skincare products, I also sold foundation, lipsticks, blush, and eye makeup. The excitement of the women when I showed them how to use the products was intense.
(Especially the pearl blush and eyeshadows—they were really moved by them.)
It seemed they misunderstood, thinking the sparkles came from gem or pearl powder. I hadn’t even mentioned the price, but the queen nodded and handed me several gold coins.
The base price for everything, from the skincare to the full makeup set, was under 10,000 yen, so this turned out to be a huge profit.
Feeling a bit nervous, I explained that these were one-of-a-kind items and couldn’t be obtained again, and graciously accepted the coins.
“From 10,000 yen to 300,000 yen…,” Natsuki remarked.
While I couldn’t compete with Akimi ’s sales of millions, it was plenty for me. The maids and attendants had contributed about five gold coins’ worth in sales.
“With this, I could easily live on three meals of convenience store bento and dessert every day,” Natsuki said.
We could still enjoy grilling any meat we found occasionally, and certain floors seemed to offer delicious fruits, so if we got tired of convenience store food, we could switch it up. I had also received a simple camping recipe book from Tohma , so we could probably manage cooking, even though we weren’t the most skilled.
Then came our third dungeon boot camp.
After acquiring skills like [Sense Presence] and [Mana Detection], we could now take down monsters with ease.
When we defeated special monsters or floor bosses, we could obtain useful magical tools or weapons.
The magical weapons were particularly great; if they matched their users’ characteristics, their effectiveness was doubled.
“Yeah, this magical bow is amazing. It lets me shoot without running out of arrows—it’s like a dream,” Natsuki exclaimed.
Although it required charging with mana, our group had far more mana than average, being summoned heroes.
(And, since I have the title of Saintess, my arrows carry a holy effect? Or was it light attribute…? Either way, the effect hurts monsters and can instantly take down undead.)
I was especially thankful for this magical bow because I didn’t want to get too close to the unpleasant-smelling and unsightly undead. Haruto’s fire magic seemed to have an effect of purifying monsters, and Akimi could use all attributes, including light magic, with ease.
Both my older brother and cousin didn’t want to fight undead up close either, so they repeatedly wiped out the troublesome floor from a distance, helping us safely pass through it.
“Oh, the floor boss, the lich, dropped something,” Haruto pointed out.
“A treasure chest?” Akimi asked.
“Wait, could it be that thing Brother Tohma was bragging about…?” Natsuki gasped.
“Hey, open it quickly, Haruto!” Akimi urged.
“Alright, alright, don’t rush me, Akimi !” Haruto responded, handling the chest.
Inside, a palm-sized small box dropped.
As Haruto carefully set it on the ground, the box started to change shape, transforming into a wooden, makeshift toilet box.
The three of us joined hands and cheered.
“We did it! Our long-awaited toilet!” Haruto shouted.
“That took forever…” Akimi added.
“Let’s try it out right away!” Natsuki exclaimed.
Having defeated the floor boss, this area had now become a safety zone. With no more monsters or beasts to worry about, the three of us excitedly stepped into the newly created toilet room.
“It was a lovely bathroom…”
I let out a deep sigh.
I never expected that I would find myself commenting on a bathroom like that, but it was a genuine impression, so there’s nothing I can do about it.
Just as my cousin had told me, it was like a hotel sanitary room.
It also reminded me of the bathroom in the Gold Salon of a certain high-end department store with its main branch in Nihonbashi.
I immediately set up the paper and towels I bought from the convenience store and worked on making the space even more comfortable.
“When I told Tohma that we got the toilet box, he congratulated us.”
“Such a laid-back guy, Brother Tohma .”
“He also requested that when we leave the dungeon, we get an empty barrel and send it to him.”
“An empty barrel? You mean the kind that holds wine?”
“Yeah.”
“Why would he want something like that…? Oh, wait. Could he be planning to use it as a bathtub?”
“Correct. You’re sharp, Natsuki .”
“Ah… I didn’t think of that…”
I had initially imagined a European-style fantasy world bathtub with cat legs, but if you didn’t care about appearance, it could indeed work as a bath.
“I see. As expected of Brother Tohma . I never thought of that. Come to think of it, the cottage we were going to stay at also had a barrel bath outside.”
“Yeah, there’s no drum bath in this world, but barrels are common.”
The three of us, who frequently visited the kitchen, knew there were large wine barrels in the food storage.
Indeed, if the barrel was that big, it could be used as a bathtub.
While we couldn’t boil water like with a drum bath, we had life magic.
“We can use water magic to fill the barrel, and then use life magic’s Heat spell to make it the right temperature for a bath… If we place the barrel in a corner of the bathroom, we can use it without worry.”
“That’s a great idea. Let’s do that next time. Even though Cleanse magic keeps everything sanitary, not being able to relax is tough.”
“Yeah. I’m really looking forward to a hot bath after so long.”
Either way, enjoying the wine barrel bath would still be a little while off. For now, we needed to aim for the lower floors of the dungeon to get stronger.
“By the way, I’m so glad that Brother Tohma rescued a male kitten… If he’d rescued an elf beauty or a cat-eared girl, I’d have been worried and lost sleep over it.”
Back in Japan, I could thoroughly keep away any bad influences from him, but now he was far away, so there was nothing I could do.
He was so kind-hearted and charming that, even if he didn’t mean it, there was a high chance that someone from this other world would fall for him because he’d end up feeding or taking care of them by accident.
“We need to quickly defeat the evil dragon and go get Brother Tohma . Alright, let’s go, you two!”
I gave the men, who looked at me with indescribable expressions, a pat on the back and opened the door to the next floor.
